As with most of the positions members of the "compassionate" and "nonjudgmental" intelligentsia take, multiculturalism is exclusively the domain of wealthy, mostly white intellectuals, as opposed to people who deal with actual problems.
Multiculturalism is the doctrine that it is not proper to negatively judge how any society conducts its affairs. It also means that there is something wrong with a person - a Westerner, in particular - who states that another culture's conduct is inferior or backwards.
Of course, no one that espouses the doctrine of multiculturalism actually has any interest in living in a society other than one in which they actually became wealthy intellectuals, but that's not the point of the creed. Multiculturalism is less a deeply held belief than it is a method, one employed by those who wish to indicate that they are, in contrast with the "ethnocentric" plebes, that they are "worldly."
The discord is jarring: the same people that place multiculturalism on a pedestal tend to hold women, homosexuals and racial minorities as oppressed groups - not in many Third World nations (where they unquestionably are), but in the West! Any objective observer, though, can quite easily discern that each of the aforementioned groups have been able to truly advance only in countries that have adopted Enlightenment values: secularism, reason and equality. This is not a matter of debate, but of intellectual honesty.
One may ask why Cubans risk their lives on shoddily produced boats to head to Miami but not the other way around. Those whose livelihood is at stake have little time to consider the "worldly" arguments of left-wing academics.
Similarly, a truly humanitarian individual has to be more morally outraged by the fact that homosexuality is outlawed in Iran than by the fact that gays in the United States cannot marry. It is, of course, absurd that gay marriage is not yet accepted in the United States, but it is more absurd still to pretend that it's as much of an outrage as the status of gays in Iran.
Under Islamic Shariah law, a female rape victim must produce multiple Muslim witnesses to the rape. Barring this, her admission is invalid and she has only confessed to adultery. Can anyone with an ounce of moral fiber say that this sort of law is equal to Western standards of women's equality?
The West, of course, is not perfect in its ways, but to argue this is merely to concede the point: multiculturalism speaks of drawing a line of moral equivalence through all cultures. To reject multiculturalism is not to assert that the West is perfect but merely that its cultural foundations are superior to those of other cultures. This is not to denigrate the outstanding achievements that most cultures have contributed to all aspects of society or to state that there is nothing that the West can learn from others. Pro-Western thinkers merely state that, overall, the foundations upon which Western civilization rests - reason, equality, secularism, tolerance - are a standard by which civilization's progress should be judged.
Although multiculturalists profess liberal aims, they are ultimately self-defeating. It is worse than facetious to pretend that all cultures are equally valid in the struggle toward progress: it is a slap in the face to all peoples in Third World and developing countries that seek to move their societies toward secularism, reason and equality. While liberal Western social critics congratulate themselves on their tolerance and understanding, tomorrow's leaders are busy fighting for real change and true justice. As the distinguished Ayaan Hirsi Ali has proclaimed: "it is not tolerant to tolerate intolerance."
Alex Knepper is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a conservative columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
